by Colin Kersey
I did not respond. One man’s rapture, after all, was another man’s wake.
The man put out his left hand. “Name’s Harold. This is my wife, Caroline.”
“Gray. You folks been doing this long?”
Harold looked where his daughter and dog were playing. “Since I could straddle a furrow and follow my daddy around. This was his farm before me. You do this picture-taking for a living?”
“Just a hobby.”
“Thought so. Your camera’s missing the back that holds the film.”
I shrugged. “The film is in my head.”
“Where you going, Katelyn?” Caroline called after her daughter who was now some 40 yards away.
“I better go after her,” she said, yet lingered, a smile playing upon her ruddy cheeks.
Harold took off his glasses with his robotic hand, blew on them, and brushed them against the front of his shirt.
“I used to go hunting before I lost my arm,” he said. “Until one time Caroline noticed I hadn’t taken any ammunition. All those years, she thought I was just a bad shot.”
“I used to tell my friends,” Caroline said, “My poor Harold couldn’t hit the side of a barn if he was to walk right up next to it.”
Harold laughed. I had to smile.
Darkness had fallen before I made it back to the house. Valerie answered the door. Patsy, at least, looked happy to see me. She pressed her nose into my crotch, her customary greeting.
***
It was getting late and I was beginning to worry that Gray was not coming back when I finally heard his truck in the driveway. From the way she whined, I could tell Patsy was as glad to see him as I was.
“How’s the hand?” he asked when I opened the door.
Embarrassed, I touched the sling where my arm with its bandaged hand rested. “Daddy’s playing cards in town with his friends. Stu and Vonda went drinking and dancing. If you want dinner, you’ll have to make it yourself.”
“That’s okay.”
“Where’d you go?” It had hurt to learn that he had left without telling me, but, by now, the loneliness was like a comforting blanket I wrapped myself in, a protection against further injury to my soul.
“I had pancakes for breakfast at Annie’s Café; you might like to go with me some Saturday morning. Then I managed to get a haircut, check out a book at the library and buy some food for tomorrow. I told your dad I’d be happy to make dinner, though he didn’t seem thrilled by my offer.”
“Oh, and I visited a couple of tulip farms,” he added. “You should have seen it.”
In the awkward silence that followed, I heard him sigh. “I’m sorry. That was stupid.”
“My mother took me once. The smell of the flowers and the dirt was amazing. I’ve never forgotten.” I started to leave, the pain in my hand now throbbing from clenching my fist.
“Hey, before you go,” he said. “I’ve got something for you.” He touched my good hand and placed a small bag in it.
I set the bag on the kitchen counter, then reached in tentatively, found a box and shook it. I felt myself flush as my suspicion grew that he was making fun of me. “What is it?”
“Bird seed.”
I turned my head slightly to listen harder. There was something I was missing. “What’s it for?”
“Your birds, of course, unless you’ve got a taste for suet.”
“I don’t have….” The words caught in my throat.
“That’s because they’re still in my truck. Wait here.”
I waited by the door, confused, my heart hammering so loud I figured he could hear it. His words had let a sliver of joy sneak in like light under a door and it made me shudder in fear and desperate hope.
“This bird cage needs to sit somewhere away from heating vents or drafts,” he said when he returned. I heard tiny peeps among the rustlings of paper.
“What did you do?”
“Here. Let me show you.” He set the cage down. Then he guided my hand as he opened the cage door and put it inside. His hand was gentle, and I stored the memory of his touch for later. The birds twittered and fluttered at having their space invaded.
“They’re canaries—a boy and a girl, or at least that’s what the lady at the pet store claimed. I’ll be damned if I know how anyone could tell. Hold up a finger,” he said. “See if one comes to you.”
One of the birds landed for an instant on my finger before fluttering away.
“She said they’ll be singing up a storm as soon as they get used to their new home.”
“How do you close it?”
As he showed me the latch on the cage, I briefly explored the mystery of his fingers. I could smell the birds and his smell, and it made me dizzy.
“What will Daddy say?”
“It might take a few days, but I think he’ll get used to them. He didn’t know about the frogs, right?”
I felt a smile break across my face for the first time in several days as I stroked the side of the cage and poked my fingers inside. The birds avoided me. “I shouldn’t do that. They could have a heart attack and croak.”
“Give them a few days to get used to you,” Gray said. “Do you like them?” He sounded nervous.
“Yes. Thank you.”
“I thought about getting you a classical music CD, but then I thought why not get you your own little orchestra? I’m sorry about yesterday,” he added.
I felt myself stiffen and turned my face away, embarrassed. It was remarkable that he had bought me a gift to apologize.
“Like I said before, I don’t remember sticking the knife in the dishwasher.”
“I’m sorry, too.” The hurt from the past several years without Momma tore painfully at the slender threads that held my heart together. “Seems like every time I trust someone, they let me down. C’mon Patsy.”
I started toward the bedroom, so he would not see the tears that were tumbling down my cheeks.
“Maybe your expectations are too high,” he said.
I ached with wanting, desperate for his arms to wrap around and hold me but could not answer.
“Guess I’d better go,” he said.
I heard the screen door hinge as he opened it.
“After a while, crocodile,” he called.
“Not so soon, baboon,” I whispered.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
As preparations for opening day accelerated, I fell each night into exhausted sleep, oblivious to the nightly frog concerts. The bruising and pain from my smashed rib had dissipated. Patsy had taken to showing up at the cabin first thing in the morning when Valerie let her out. She would lie on the floor near the small heater, nose between her paws, and watch as I showered and got dressed for work. Later, she would run circles around me as I climbed the hill to the Van de Zilver house for breakfast.
Valerie seemed untroubled by her seeing-eye dog’s behavior. “Without her harness, she’s just another dog who needs exercise and affection.” Patsy smiled in agreement as Valerie scratched behind her ears. “You should be flattered. She does not care much for Daddy or Stu. Or even Vonda for that matter.”
Following breakfast on Friday, Stu ordered me to meet him at the metal building with the barred window. When I arrived, the bull was already parked outside, and Stu had unlocked the garage door and entered. Inside, a large chest freezer and an old upright Frigidaire stood in a corner. There was also a wooden desk which, judging from the many scratches and grooves on its surface, was used mostly for setting things on, and a gray metal filing cabinet. Nearly hidden in its shadow, I noted a closed door with a heavy padlock.
“Here’s where we keep the fish food,” Stu said. “It’s time you learn how to handle this part of the operation. I’ll be in Seattle this weekend attending a conference for building inspectors.”
From the refrigerator, he removed two opened bags of Oregon Pellets, one with a number five on it and the other with a number three.
“Soon as the bags in the refer run low, grab another one
out of the freezer, but don’t wait too long. Takes a day to defrost, so plan ahead. Throw these two on the back of the Bull.”
I watched as Stu closed and locked the garage door.
“Seems like a lot of security for fish food,” I said when Stu joined me on the double-wide seat of the Bull.
Stu’s smile held no mirth. He started the Bull and headed toward the barn.
“A child or animal happened to get into the chemicals we store in there, they could come to a lot of grief,” he said. “That goes for you, too. I will be giving you one key to open the garage door. Don’t be messing with the other door. It’s off limits.” He turned to face me. “Understand?”
“Why did you say you saw me put the knife in the dishwasher?”
“Because,” Stu replied evenly, “you don’t belong here. Something about you smells bad. The longer you are here, the worse the stink gets. It ain’t a matter of ‘if,’ but ‘when’ you’re going to cause another accident, leaving me to clean up your mess.”
Another time zone, another place, I might have said I was sorry for the trouble I had caused. But for Stu, I said nothing.
“In my opinion, Virgil hiring you was a mistake.” Stu poked me in the chest with a finger. “Don’t make me regret it any more than I already do.”
We continued down the hill. “We’ll start with pond three.”
The three ponds were laid out in a line stretching from the west to the east, each one roughly one hundred and fifty feet apart from its neighbor. The smallest of the three ponds was rectangular-shaped and located furthest from the barn. It was still early in the morning, too early for a breeze. The water reflected the nearby alder, fir, and cedar trees. Beneath the placid surface, flashes of silver flickered among the dark, mysterious green of the water.
“These are fingerlings,” Stu said. “They get the number three pellets. Three stands for the size—three-thirty-seconds.”
He withdrew a large plastic spoon full of pellets from the bag. They smelled of fish. “Pay attention to how much I feed them. All the fish need to be fed twice a day. The trick is not to over or under feed them. Too much and the food sinks to the bottom and becomes plant fertilizer. Too little and the fish don’t grow fast enough, or they starve.”
He cast a ladle full of pellets across the surface of the pond and a horde of silver blades knifed thorough the reflected trees toward the food.
Pond two was twice as large as the first, centrally located, and had the best view of the surrounding hills and mountains duplicated on its surface.
“These fish are larger, what are called ‘sub-catchables,’” Stu said. “They average between six and sixteen fish per pound.”
Each time Stu tossed a scoop of food out across the pond, the surface would churn for the next several seconds as the fish ate.
“Hungry little bastards, aren’t they? Got to keep them reasonably well-fed and separated by size or they’ll eat each other.”
Stu climbed back on the Bull’s bench seat where I waited. “You can’t keep six-inch trout and their three-inch cousins together and expect to have very many of your smaller fish survive. It’s survival of the fittest.”
Unbidden, the memory of the woman shooting at me caused a wave of nausea to wash over me. “Nature can be pretty cruel,” I managed to mumble.
“Depends on your perspective. If you’re a big fish, it ain’t so bad. If you’re a little fish,” he smiled, “then you best watch your ass.”
“What about the test tubes I’ve seen you filling with water?” I asked, anxious to move on to another subject other than survival, especially with mine being no sure thing. “What’s that all about?”
“Spying on me, huh?” Stu said. “I don’t think you need to worry about the alkalinity of the ponds going haywire. At least, not this weekend. This is natural, spring-fed water. It has been the same for thousands of years. No reason for it to change anytime soon. At least, none that I can think of. Unless, of course, you let lawn fertilizer run-off into the ponds, in which case it will kill all the fish.”
We visited the large, natural pond where the cabin was located last. Its ellipsoidal shape lacked the symmetry of the man-made ponds, but I had cherished its rustic beauty from the first moment I had seen it. Its surface mirrored the tall cedar trees of the island and the cabin. A wooden park bench sat along the eastern edge.
“Your neighbors here are the ‘catchables,’” Stu said. “They get the larger, size five pellets. You want to see something impressive, watch this.”
He cast the food out over the pond and, as the pellets began to rain down upon the surface, the water erupted violently as rainbow trout leapt and slapped the water with their tails in a feeding frenzy.
A particularly loud splash near the island attracted my attention. “What is that? A muskrat?”
“That was Moses, the Jew trout.”
I watched for another sign of the fish, but without success. “I’ve never heard of a Jew trout.”
“That’s just what Virgil calls him because he’s so smart,” Stu said. “Ol’ Moses has been here forever. We think he is a Lake trout because of his size, but nobody knows for sure. He’s the main reason why people have been coming up here to fish for the last fifteen or twenty years.”
“I’m surprised no one has hooked him.”
“Oh, he’s been hooked plenty. But he is so big and smart that he always gets away. I have seen him yank an entire rod and reel into the lake more than once. Then the poor sap who hooked him goes down to the bar and tells all his friends and, for the next week, people are lined up around the pond, shoulder to shoulder and three deep, waiting to take their turn trying to catch Moses. He’s our star attraction.”
Stu turned to face me. “Think you can handle this?”
“I think so.”
“You forget something, or need help when I’m not here, you can ask Virgil if he’s around. No sense bothering Valerie or my wife. Vonda used to help her dad as a kid, but she claims she does not remember anything. Personally, I think she does not want to remember. Feeding fish isn’t exactly her style, know what I mean?”
Given the nasty smell of the food, I could understand why feeding fish was not likely to be very high on most women’s priority list. As for myself, however, I was looking forward to getting to know my “neighbors,” as Stu called them, especially the one called Moses.
“One more thing.” Stu jabbed me in the chest with a finger. “I ever hear about you touching my wife—even in a friendly sort of way—and I’ll chop you up with the hammerknifer and feed you to the fish one bite-size bit at a time. Understand?”
I sighed in frustration. Stu’s poking my chest was wearing on me. “My wife just died. You really think I’m interested in Vonda, or any other woman for that matter?”
“Like I said, keep any stupid ideas you might have and your hands to yourself.”
Tell that to your wife, I thought.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Sometime during the night, it began to rain, a hard-driving, wanton downpour that drummed on the cabin’s shingled roof and reverberated in its wood-paneled interior. I pulled the blanket up around my shoulders and hoped the roof would not leak.
The rain was still falling when I got up and, by the look of it, did not intend to quit anytime soon. The trees stooped like old women, the wind whipped the surface of the pond into retreating ripples and the clouds massed together into a solid, dark plain that obliterated any memory of sun.
After feeding the fish, I retreated to the house for a cup of coffee and asked Valerie if she would like to join me for breakfast at Annie’s. Vonda was still sleeping, and Virgil had left earlier to attend an auction. Valerie declined, however, and I drove to Sedro Woolley alone.
After returning to my cabin, I began to read about trout rearing. A little after half-past three, there was a knock on the door. I opened it to find Vonda, an umbrella in one hand and a bottle of chardonnay with a couple of plastic cups riding its top in the othe
r.
“Mind if I join you?”
I stood there, blocking the doorway for a moment as I recalled Stu’s latest threat.
“Going to let me drown out here?”
She brushed past me. I took her umbrella and stood it inside the door, then hung her coat on a hook on the back of the door with mine.
“The rain drives me nuts,” she said. “I need somebody to drink with.”
She removed a wool scarf and tossed it on the floor. She wore a pair of tight-fitting blue jeans and a green V-necked sweater that matched her eyes and displayed a hint of cleavage. Her nose had a slight bump, and her light blond hair was probably chemically enhanced, but I thought she was sexy-looking and more than capable of holding her own in any roomful of women. I was suddenly aware of how small the cabin seemed with one more body in it—especially Vonda’s body.
“I don’t drink,” I replied.
“A shame,” she said and shrugged. “On the other hand, perhaps it’s just as well. I generally drink enough for two people.”
I placed the only chair beside her. “Have a seat.”
“Thanks, but I prefer this.” She sat down on the cot and started to take off her cowboy boots. “How about turning up the toaster?” She nodded toward the tiny space heater.
“So, tell me,” she said a moment later, after I had adjusted the plastic heater to full power. “What’s your problem with drinking—addiction or religion?”
“More like a lack of control.” In constant pain and anxiety in the days spent fleeing Southern California, I had found temporary relief in a bottle of Jack Daniels.
“Oh, goody.” She poured wine into a cup, then set the bottle down. “I like a man with a lack of control, remote or otherwise.” She crossed one leg over the other and raised her glass in a toast. “Here’s to losing control.” She winked and took a sip.